Professor Justice Bawole, the Dean of the University of Ghana Business School (UGBS), has condemned social media content creators who target and ridicule Junior High School (JHS) leavers for viral visibility.

In a deeply emotional address, Prof. Bawole described the trend of recording students who struggle to express themselves in English after their Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE) as "nonsense" and "extremely terrible".

He warned that such digital exploitation can permanently shatter the confidence of young people and potentially destroy their academic futures.

Prof. Bawole’s reaction was triggered by a viral video showing two young men being interviewed in English by a content creator who mocked their inability to speak the language fluently.

The Dean, a trained teacher himself, argued that a student's inability to speak English at the JHS level is not a reflection of their intelligence, but rather a symptom of a deeply unequal educational system.

“Our systems have created such a level of inequality that depending on where you find yourself, which is through no fault of yours, it could define whether or not you are able to speak English,” Prof. Bawole stated.

He further noted that children in privileged urban schools often speak good English not because they are inherently better, but because of resources that are frequently denied to rural communities.

“In fact, in [some' cases, the privilege that we got to take our children to the best schools is a stolen privilege... money that could be used to make the system better for everyone,” he added.

A Personal Journey from Yeji

Drawing from his own difficult upbringing in a village 18 kilometres from Yeji, Prof. Bawole shared a story of being asked to interpret for an American couple while he was in primary school. Despite being one of the few in school, he could not understand a word of English at the time, leading to severe mockery in his village.

“This almost marked the end of my education. It took the insistence of my father consistently... he would send me back to school,” he recalled.

He used his personal success, rising from a struggling village student to the Dean of a premier business school, as proof that language barriers at a young age do not define a person’s ultimate potential.

A Call for Legal and Legislative Intervention

The Dean expressed outrage that media houses and individuals record children under the age of 18 without parental consent, turning them into a "laughing stock". He specifically called on the Minister for Communication, Digital Technology & Innovation, to champion a legal crackdown on those who exploit vulnerable minors for social media "likes".

“If there is any law in Ghana that prevents the mockery of people... that law should apply to whoever recorded this video and whoever put this video online,” he asserted.

He further challenged experts in the Department of Psychology and Social Welfare to track down the young men in the viral video to provide them with urgent counselling to mitigate the risk of self-harm or trauma.

Professionalism in Media

Prof. Bawole concluded by urging content creators to delete such videos immediately and called for a return to the conversation regarding using local languages for instruction to better support students in rural settings.

He insisted that the media must exercise a higher level of professionalism that does not expose children, often struggling with the "trauma of the exam", to national ridicule.